I was born with a microphallus and small testes. Other members of my family
in earlier generations had showed the same characteristics, so my parents
were aware of my problem early on. As I grew up, I always felt that I was male,
and I was strongly attracted sexually to females. However, I never developed
any of the normal male secondary sex characteristics. My voice remained
high-pitched, and I had no normal body-hair growth or the normal physical
changes of adolescence.

The doctor my parents consulted told them I was "probably" male, and they
should be "extra careful" to guard against any "homosexual tendencies" that I
might show. If I ever showed any "feminine" traits (including crying, and
interest in "unmanly" activities like music) I got the s$%t beat out of me,
usually by my mother or grandmother.

When I was 17, the doctor put me through a complete endocrine workup. Part of
this workup required me to stand, stark naked, in front of a dozen or so male
and female medical and nursing students, while the doctor described how he
would determine "the actual gender" of "this individual" (me). I still remember
his words: "At this point, we don't know if the genitalia you see is a very
small penis or a very large clitoris!" This experience sent me into a major
depression and I attempted suicide.

In my 20's I was finally able to escape into the care of another physician, who
finally diagnosed my condition as Kallmann's Syndrome. I am a genetic male,
with a normal XY chromosome pattern. However, because of a genetic defect, my
pituitary gland fails to give the proper hormonal signals to my testes. I
received testosterone replacement therapy, which produced all of the normal
male secondary sex characteristics (lower voice register, increased
musculature, and beard growth). My penis remains smaller than normal, and I
have a very low sperm count. While I would like to establish a long-term
intimate relationship with a woman, I have yet to find a woman who will accept
a man like myself. Through psychological counseling, I have learned to accept
my situation for what it is, and live life on my own. But I'll always wonder
what having a marriage and family would be like.

Unsigned

I was born in 1955 with AIS-Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome. At the time it
wasn't noticed as far as I know because I was born very premature and weighed
only 4 1/2 lbs. I had many health problems that the doctors had to deal
with.

Since it was 1955, they didn't have the modern techniques that they have today
such as Neonatal ICU, so they were going to let me just die. I also had to have
a complete transfusion of all my blood because I had suffered a stroke either
in utero or right after birth because of the Rh factor conflict between my
mother's blood and mine.

I stayed in the hospital for three months and slowly through prayer, faith, and
the grace of God I recovered and was able to come home and am alive today at 46
years of age. I do remember being taken to numerous doctors as a young child
from the age of 5. I was never given a reason why I was being examined. I don't
remember questioning it, or if I did I don't remember being given an answer
that is memorable.

Later, around the age of 10 (in Aug. of 1966), I was taken by my parents to a
urologist, and was examined and told that I would need to have "surgery." I was
told that I had been born with an inguinal hernia, and it would have to be
corrected. I was also told I would have to take female hormones the rest of my
life so I could develop breasts and have all the female curves, etc.

I was told I wouldn't have pubic hair and underarm hair and that I would grow a
beard and my voice would be low like a male's and such if I didn't have the
surgery and take the hormones. I questioned why but my parents said that is
just the way it is. Naturally as a girl at that age I wasn't concerned about
this because you have all faith and confidence in your parents and feel that
they would never do anything to your detriment. I was put in the hospital at
the age of 11 years, and surgery was performed on me. I was given a bilateral
gonadectomy.

When I was recovered I was told that I would not be able to have any children
and that I was to never speak about this to anyone. I wondered why, but
when I pushed the issue my parents would get very upset so I would back off.
The only other thing I was told was that my female organs never fully formed
because I was born so premature and that the pieces that were found could have
caused cancer.

The doctor came down during the surgery to the waiting room and asked my
parents if they wanted him to make me a boy or leave me as a female, and they
said leave me female because I had been raised thinking I was a female up till
then, and we lived in a very small country town where everyone knew me. They
also felt that as a little 11 year old girl, it would be too traumatic for me
to come back as a little boy, because I was raised as a girl up until then.
We would have had to move to another state and started all new lives because of
the embarrassment and discomfort my parents and I would have had to
face.

I am glad that I had the surgery now and have the life I have but I can't say
for sure how I would have felt at the age of 11 if I had known the whole story
and understood it like I do now. I don't blame them for having the surgery
performed but I do blame them for not telling me the whole truth,
especially when I was around the age of 13 or 14 when I could have understood
it all better, I believe. Then I wouldn't have gone through all the soul
searching I have done since finding out the whole truth. My doctor said
when I called him awhile back with more questions that I reminded him of a
person who had just found out they were adopted and couldn't find out all
information about their birth and birth parents fast enough.

I was a happy teenager and believed in my parent's love for me and I totally
believed in my doctor, who was like a father to me. I had no reason to ever
question what I had been told. I was a very trusting child.

When I started dating at 15, I was told to not tell my boyfriend anything and
to be a "good girl." I knew what this meant, and I had all intents on doing
just that. I did know that I couldn't get pregnant, but I had just started
dating this guy so I wasn't about to do anything. Later as we knew each other
more and dated more we realized that we were going to end up together, and I
told him that I was certain because of an operation I had when I was 11 years
old that I couldn't have any children and that if he was going to want a family
when we married that we would have to adopt. He said "fine" and just asked me
as to why I couldn't have children. I told him what little I knew of the
situation. I used dilators to lengthen my short, blind-ending vagina, which
worked very satisfactorily.

I married at the age of 16 years old. I had never been away from home, and the
homesickness was more than I could handle. I developed panic attacks; I didn't
know what they were at the time although I know now. I have found out over the
years that anxiety/panic diorders and such do occur among people born with
Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome.

I came across some papers that pertained to me and my condition. There in black
and white were the words under diagnosis, "Bilateral Gonadectomy." I
immediately called my parents and questioned them on this and of course they
denied it and tried to convince me I was mistaken and that the papers had been
on someone else, but I knew there was no mistake.

I called my doctor the urologist, and he at first also denied any knowledge and
tried to give me the answers he had given me all those years ago after my
surgery, but finally he realized that I wasn't going to stop digging until I
knew the truth, so he told me the whole truth. I was devastated because my
physical appearance was female, and I had always been told I was a girl, and I
had always thought of myself as a girl.

I had pubic hair, underarm hair, and breasts and looked totally female! It
later became clear to me that it was because I had been put on HRT (hormone
replacement therapy) after the surgery at the age of 11. (I was put on
Diethylstilbestrol at age 11, but I forget the dose, and it was increased as I
got older.) I was very upset, but over time learned to accept it and dug around
until I finally paid to get my records from my doctor and just consumed
everything in the folder like a starving person seeing food for the first
time.

As far as my husband is concerned, I am his wife and 100% woman. We have
celebrated almost 30 years of marriage and are a very happy, loving couple. We
never adopted any children but we are happy just the same.

I know my situation may seem unique, but believe me it hasn't been a bed of
roses. I have made it through a lot of difficulties and come out on the other
side happy and healthy. The one thing that I have found which is very
common among people born with AIS is that the doctors advised our parents
to never tell us what really happened to us because of the thinking
among the doctors that we would commmit suicide, which was the furtherest thing
from my mind I assure you and most everyone I have come in contact with that
was born this way.

Finding the AIS People Club in Yahoo has helped me find a whole new family to
get support, help, and understanding regarding my AIS. I highly recommend the
AIS People Club to anyone of any age who needs someone to talk to for
support.

Unsigned

I was born with ambiguous genitalia and raised as a girl till age three. I did
not have any genital corrections because my mother wanted me to be changed to
male. The doctors refused to do that and wanted to correct me to female, but my
mother would not give consent for them to do that.

My mother remarried when I was two, my father having died two weeks before I
was born. Her desire to have me changed to a male persisted, and with my
stepfather's monetary resources, she was able to find a surgeon to make the
genital corrections she desired for me. This resulted in genital surgery to
male, with a complete change of gender role being imposed upon me.

I was unable to adjust to the new role at all. This created emotional havoc for
me, effectively depriving me of a normal childhood. The dysfunctional nature of
my family, which includes alcoholism in both parents, led to divorce preceded
by years of spousal and child abuse perpetrated by my stepfather. I had a very
difficult time, and was unable to socialize and gain peer acceptance, until
several years after leaving home at age 16.

I then lived as an androgenous person of indeterminate sex, and later as a
female, as soon as I was able to procure medical treatment for sex transition.
My sex transition was long delayed because I was dysfunctional, emotionally
confused, unsocialized, and consequently uneducated and unemployable. I barely
survived at all, until I joined a Protestant fundamentalist Christian church at
age 19. I entered missionary training, and after completing it two years later,
became a full time Protestant missionary with the Christian Missionary
Alliance. Our church was later absorbed by a cult, The Children of God, and I
became disillusioned and left a short time later.

After leaving the church my gender dysphoria continued to intensify, and I was
then unable to repress my feelings any longer and sought help. I first learned
of my intersex condition at age 29, when I was incorrectly diagnosed as a
hermaphrodite by a physician who was not well informed about intersex
conditions and misinterpreted the unusual results of lab tests to determine
hormone levels, in addition to positive results from a buccal smear indicating
an XX sexual genotype. I am, however, neither a hermaphrodite, nor do I have an
XX sexual genotype.

One year later I was again misdiagnosed at a university teaching hospital, as
having a chimera-like mosaic of XX/XO/XY, as a result of kariotypes that were
more likely than not done improperly. My most recent kariotype performed in
1993 shows an XO/XY mosaic of Turner Syndrome, which is far more likely. MRI
results also show that I have Mullerian duct remnants, which help confirm this
diagnosis.

It has been a long, lonely, and difficult struggle to become who I truly
believe I was meant to be all along. I have done more than survive. I have
become a happy woman despite the odds. I had successful GRS at long last, in
October 2000.

Natasha

As a child, I knew I was a girl, and my parents knew me as a girl, but I didn't
identify as a girl like other girls. I played exclusively with boys and dressed
like a boy and thought like a boy. I was skilled at boys games and activities
and was a leader among the boys. Physically, in the pre-teen years, I was as
strong as any boy and proved it by winning at wrestling matches, even
challenging any who doubted it. I insisted that my clothes be boys clothes,
shirts, knickers, boots, and boys parkas, and that's all I would wear to school
until I finished 6th grade. My parents went along with this except for
insisting I wear a dress to Sunday School and church, which I agreed to do.

I felt very happy in my life as a tomboy. I did have one girl I was friendly
with because she also wore boys clothes to school, but didn't live in my
neighborhood so wasn't part of my gang. I didn't learn girls games, like jacks,
jumprope, paper dolls, or playing house, and I felt embarrassed when boys made
fun of girls who did. Out of doors I was all tomboy, but when I came home I
lost my confidence in my identity and often felt weak and confused. I
identified with my mother in her love of babies, adored them myself, and even
had baby dolls that I played with and pretended to nurse—all in the secrecy
of my bedroom. I felt that I understood my father, who was a weak male figure,
impatient and nervous, intelligent, but largely dominated by my mother.

At the end of 6th grade the class made a visit to the junior high school we
would attend the next year. All the 6th graders from other grade schools came,
and all went well until we lined up in the gym, boys on one side, girls on the
other. I lined up with the girls, knowing I was actually a girl. From across
the room I heard jeering from the boys and realized it was directed at me. I
stood out like a sore thumb, dressed in boys clothes in the girls line. They
were making fun of me, pretending I was in the wrong line, telling me to come
over to theirs. I was horrified and exposed to the world as a fraud. The worst
of it was, I had been one of them and now they were turning on me. I was shaken
to the core, realizing I had to change my whole idenity to be accepted in this
new environment and by the boys, who had now become my tormentors.

From that moment on, I studied girls to imitate them although I felt like a
foreigner in a strange land; I had lost my self confidence, my enthusiam, and
my spontaneity. I worked hard all through high school and college trying to be
like the girls and supressing my natural inclinations in order to do so. I
dated, went steady, acted right, but all without genuine feelings. I felt
deeply attracted to certain girls and female figures, but hid those feelings
and tried to blank them out of my consciousness. I was insecure and mostly
unhappy with myself. I found satisfaction in accomplishments and intellectual
pursuits trying to compensate for my low self-esteem. The one constant that I
hung on to was my love for babies and my desire to have my own.

After breaking one engagement to be married, I finally forced myself to go
through with another and married in order to fit my image of how I should be. I
felt no happiness in the union, tried to leave, only to return in order to fit
again expectations of others and of my own learned expectations. My only
genuine happiness came with the birth of my four children, and they became my
purpose for living. I fought depression continually and sometimes was suicidal.

After 25 years of marriage, with my children almost grown, I realized I was
going to be left without them with a stranger whom I feared, rather than loved,
as my only companion. Rather than kill myself or go insane, I chose to divorce.
It was a painful decision, knowing that it would wound the children's lives,
but I could see no other way to save my sanity.

Being single again was like being reborn. I had no desire to marry again and
was not in the least interested in men. I found my inner resources again, felt
strong and confident. Self-sufficiency was my agenda. I worked, got a masters
degree, and a career in a distant city. Gender identity again became an issue,
and it suddenly dawned on me that I was probably lesbian in denial all my life.
It fit and clarified all the self-doubt I had and explained why I failed to
become who I thought I should be. At the time I was in therapy, and the
therapist tried to talk me out of it, but for the first time in my adult life I
went with my own feelings instead others and felt good about it. I had a brief
lesbian relationship, which confirmed my sexual identity to me without a doubt.

I then began the relationship that was the love of my life for 17 years until
her death from breast cancer in 1995. During those years my one constant regret
was the pain I had caused my children. First, the divorce and then my choice to
geographically separate from them in order to stay in my relationship, which
they found hard to accept. After my partners death, I chose to return to the
town I came from to be near the children and to rebuild relationships, if
possible.

I am now 77 years old, having lived through the extremely homophobic years of
my childhood and most adult years in gender confusion. I have a support group
of affirming and accepting friends and am fully accepting my lesbian identity
although I don't talk about it to one of my children who is a fundamentalist.
The other three know my orientation and accept it to varying degrees. I have
eight grandchildren and the two oldest in their 20s are delighted to learn that
their grandmother is lesbian. For the younger ones, I have decided not to force
the issue until they inquire of me.

I am encouraged by the changes in attitudes of so much of society, although
there is much more needing change. I see young people now owning their true
feelings and identity, being courageous in working through the negative
responses of family and society and bringing about more acceptance in the
process. Life can be beautiful if only we allow and appreciate
diversity.

Louise

My name is Allison, and I am a 40-something pre-op male-to-female transsexual.
Simply put, my gender does not align with my genetic sex. This is not an
acquired condition; rather, it is an intrinsic part, a lifelong aspect of my
being. It is a rare condition, to be sure, but one extensively studied and with
a generally accepted medical treatment.

I became aware of my female gender identity at about the age of four. I have
spent a good part of my life struggling with this conflict between my body and
my mind. I have studied this subject in depth, I have been treated by
professionals, but I have also spent a great deal of time and effort hiding,
denying, and trying, to no avail, to be "normal," to purge my female gender
identity. Finally, I came gradually to accept that my gender dysphoria is part
of who I am as a person; it is a part of the reality of my being. I have slowly
followed a course of action to find peace and harmony and comfort with my
gender.

I don't think of being transsexual as a blessing or a curse. I just think of it
as a trait, like being right-handed or tall. Unfortunately, any trait carries
with it certain social stereotypical presumptions. The misconceptions
transsexuals have to deal with are that it's all about sex, or that we're just
gay people who hate being gay. I just find that living and interacting with
others as a female feels right.

However, even though I consider transsexualism to be simply a physical and
psychological trait, I think of my transition from male life scenario to female
to be the greatest adventure of my life, because it's truly a journey of
self-realization at the most fundamental level.

I knew something was up from earliest memory. I have several specific memories
from around age 4 or 5. I was sometimes thought to be a girl when I was little,
which I didn't mind at all. By the time I was 8 or 9, I knew what a transsexual
was, well before I even knew the facts of life. I was scared to death to tell
my parents how I felt, though. By the time I got to junior high school, I was
starting to have a lot of problems with classmates because I was effeminate, so
I made every effort to act the way boys were expected to. I mimicked the
behavior of the other boys as best I could even though it felt neither natural
nor comfortable. This strategy worked, and I decided that I'd be better off
putting all my feelings behind me. You might think of this as a complex "male
emulator program" with a highly interactive (though not always user friendly)
Graphical User Interface.

Eventually, I decided I could manage/suppress my inner feelings without doing
anything about them. In other words, I was continually trying to debug and
refine my "male emulator program." However, you know what happens when you keep
making changes to the same program over and over again: It eventually stops
working. There are just too many "special cases" and "boundary conditions." To
top it off, I was trying to run my male emulator program under a female
operating system!

By a few years ago, I started to realize that I was getting more and more
unhappy because I wasn't addressing those feelings. I started therapy and
quickly concluded what I had always suspected. I began planning for transition,
getting everything taken care of prior to going full-time. This included
telling people outside of work, having electrolysis to remove my facial hair
(anyone who thinks that transsexuals are "wimps" or "sissies" has never had an
electrologist poke an electrified needle into their upper lip for two to three
straight hours, week after week!), starting hormone therapy, growing my hair
and trying to develop a female voice. I have already legally changed my name
and all documents.

Someone once asked me, "I still don't understand why a person just can't
continue to live as a woman in a man's body, or vice versa, and learn to be
comfortable in that." This is probably the hardest thing about being
transsexual to get across to another person. Let me try to explain it.

Imagine that you have an itch in the middle of your back and, not only can you
not reach it, but also you don't want to scratch it either. The harder you try
to ignore it, the worse the itch gets ... until every inch of your skin is
screaming at you.

Consider the overweight person who looks into the mirror and says, "I know
there's a thin person inside." And then, he or she tries every diet fad that
comes along just trying to let that thin person out.

Then there is the person with obsessive-compulsive disorder who, no matter
what, just can't stop washing his or her hands, or stop checking the windows
and door locks.

Imagine looking into your bathroom mirror, being so totally and completely
disgusted with the person being reflected back that you'd do literally anything
not to be that person.

Okay? Getting the picture? Let's bring it closer to home and closer to the
actual situation.

Imagine that no matter what you do or where you go, you don't fit in. You're
expected to behave one way but that way goes absolutely and completely contrary
to your very soul. You're expected to appear one way, but that way makes you
physically ill ... I mean, head-in-the-toilet, gut-wrenchingly sick. You avoid
looking at yourself in mirrors because you're so repulsed by what you see. You
can't even stand to look at yourself when you're in the shower!

But you want to please the ones you love, you desperately don't want to let
them down, so you try to conform to their expectations, and those of society.
You feel that if you don't measure up to their image, they might not love you
anymore. So, you try and try ... every day, minute by minute, second by
second.

And inside, you're so sick, sad, guilty, and filled with shame because when you
listen to your heart, it seems like the entire world says, "You're sick ...
you're weird ... you're bad ... you're perverted." You see a person like you on
TV shows and he or she is the butt of jokes ... the comedy relief ... the topic
of a talk show.

Years pass, the pressure builds. Eventually you come to realize that the only
way you will ever be happy, the only way you'll be able to survive, is
to be true to what is inside.

That is only a small sample of the inner turmoil that we experience every
second of every day.

I hope that this gives some of you a small insight into what it is like to be a
transsexual. I never asked to be this way, and even though I am not ashamed to
be a transsexual I would not want to wish this on anyone. In the final
analysis, I am not asking for any special privileges or treatment, but simply
to be treated as a human being, to be treated as you would any other
woman.

Allison

My name is Eddie. I am a cross-dresser. During the past several years, I have
become familiar with the term "transgendered"—a person having both a
masculine and feminine side. I have also heard this referred to as "gender
gifted." My sexual orientation is heterosexual. I have no desire to become a
female and accordingly should not be confused with a person who is
transsexual.

Cross-dressing has been some part of who I am for most of my life. I do not
remember when I discovered this part of me, but I remember the excitement of
trying on panties as early as age 12 or 13. I did not choose to be a
cross-dresser. I am certain I would have chosen to be what the world sees as a
"normal" person. I have traveled through life feeling guilty and ashamed about
being "different." Numerous times, I have "purged" and vowed I would never
again engage in my "perversion." Each time, I have failed. The desire to dress
in female attire has always returned.

As I have aged, this desire that started with silky underwear has expanded to
encompass much more. While the sexual excitement of it has waned over time, the
emotional gratification in dressing in complete female attire has grown.

More recently, I have discovered that I am but one of many men who cross-dress.
I have read that as many as 1 in 20 men may be cross-dressers! The relative
anonymity of the Internet has provided a safe place to "come out" and share our
experiences with one another. I have been somewhat amazed that many of our
experiences are strikingly similar. While I have taken comfort in the knowledge
that I am not alone, I still struggle to find a way to accept this facet of my
person as "okay."

Eddie

Yes, we are out here.

Forty-eight years old and still trying to accept myself and the fact that I
think I should look, act, dress, and be female. It's a unique form of heaven
and hell. I don't recommend it to the uninitiated. We are our own
species, our own separate form, and many of us believe we are another step in
human evolution—half male, half female. I would choose, however, female. I
intensely dislike living as a male.

"Sharon"

What is it like to be a transsexual? A common question innocently asked by many
who are inquisitive. And one that I have always had a hard time giving a
response to. After all, it is like asking a person what cancer is like. You can
understand, but unless you have had it, you can't relate. So I am hoping in
this writing to help you understand it, as I know you will never be able to
relate to it. That is the best the transgender community and I can hope to
achieve. And with the exposure of the transgender community in the media within
the last year, there are some real myths to expel, and some points that are
accurate to expand upon.

To understand just where this happened in my life, there has been a lot of pain
with the knowledge that my body was the wrong sex. I am not talking about
physical pain per se, but rather mental pain. My mother told me stories, before
she died, of how I would do things that were traditionally female. My parents
bought me a toy razor, and instead of using it to mimic my father and shave my
face, I proceeded to shave my legs.

I remember how kindergarten gave me my first taste of the shame I would be
indoctrinated with over my life, of ridicule by adults and my peers. At one
point the teacher thought I was lost and had finally found me under my desk,
playing house. Back then, in early childhood, I knew something was wrong, it
caused me embarrassment and a little shame, but I always felt that it would
work out, if I just hoped and prayed hard enough. I couldn't put a finger on
it, but something about me was different.

From the earliest age I felt different, because I was not like those I was
supposed to be like. I didn't understand them or what they did. I was quiet and
gentle, and they were rough and loud. I liked to draw and read, to paint and
play with stuffed animals, making little homes for them and myself. I did not
fit in with my supposed peers. I felt outcast, and I had a difficult time
understanding fully just why. I always befriended girls and enjoyed their play.
When I would interact with boys, I didn't enjoy their play. I couldn't
understand why someone would like to get into brawls or play baseball or other
tough sports. It made no sense to me. Girls would often not include me unless
they were stuck with me (their mothers were "sitting" me), which I also did not
understand, so the best definition of what it felt like for me to be a
transsexual child would be Outcast and Confused.

As I approached puberty, the exclusion from both boys and girls increased, as
each had reasons for avoiding the shy strange child I was. To boys I was weird
because I liked girlish things, and to girls I was icky because I was supposed
to be a boy. When they did include me, they wanted me to play the role of
`daddy' or `boyfriend' or other such role, and I would only be willing to play
`mommy' or my usual, the neighbor next door (which was often gender neutral) in
games of playing house. In every activity my gender dilemma affected me. At one
point I insisted on getting a doll as my nephew who was severly retarded got
one. To me, it was only fair that if he got to have a doll, and I wanted one in
the worst way, why shouldn't I get one too? To my pain, three days after I got
it, the doll disappeared.

Throughout my school years I was persecuted, for my notable differences
increasingly resulted in physical abuse from the boys. I was threatened and
beaten, called a fag and a queer, and constantly humiliated. I don't remember
how it happened, but in junior high school I got a letter from my doctor
excusing me from gym. The experience was horrible every time I tried to go to
gym. It was like a sacrificial lamb being fed to the wolves. The boys that
would play with me wanted to create adventures of conflict. The girls that
would play with me sometimes let me play with their dolls, but then would
ridicule me for it later.

The feelings of being a prepubescent transsexual might best be summarized by
Hiding, Substitution, and the pain of Physical Abuse. By puberty, I knew shame
very well indeed and feared the names and violence applied to me. Increasingly
I tried to deny my true self and felt that my gender identity was something to
be disgusted about. Puberty brought a rush of sexual tension, and with it the
most awful horror: sexuality.

I remember the night my mother told me the story of the birds and the bees. I
had never been so horrified in all my life. No, it wasn't the details that got
to me, it was reality hitting a fatal blow. The truth that I would never be
changed physically into what I really am hit at that moment. I cried all night
long after that little talk. The pain was so intense that I just wanted to die
by morning. To heck with the prayer I usually recited about being changed into
a girl by daylight.

Then, to complicate things further, the hormones started. The awful
incorrectness of my body now seemed to have a will and mind of its own, and I
felt devoured and possessed as if by some alien bodysnatching spore. Male
hormones were like a poison and a terrible drug to me; they brought madness and
sickness. I felt terrible all the time, poisoned by sweating, nervous twisted
lust. The hormones made sexual feelings flood my mind; I could think of little
else. I masturbated like a monkey in a cage, constantly, loathing the act but
tortured by the uncontrollable drive. It made me feel like I was the worst kind
of creature that any God could have ever created. I hated my body and what is
more, I hated me.

The feeling of being a puberty-stricken transsexual was for me the feeling of
being possessed by a demon, the feeling of being out of control, with the only
help in withdrawal deep within my own mind. The agony of this drove me to near
madness. My mind did its best to survive and split into two separate
awarenesses. One awareness became a day-to-day attempt to fit in, to be what
the world expected, and this version of me had little conscious acknowledgment
of my gender problem. All it knew was that I was miserable, sick enough to
die.

The other half of my consciousness became dominant only when it was safe. It
waited to become me whenever the opportunity to be alone arose. When I was
alone, my true self leapt panting into full consciousness, desperate to seize a
moment to be itself. I found peace and completeness when I was dressing up in
my mother's things, which became tarnished by that dreadful sex drive that
owned my body utterly, and the endless masturbation became entwined with
dressing as a woman, at least for a while.

Nearing my 20's I had begun to finally have some slight control over the
impulses that rode me and once again became able to separate dressing from the
need for sexual release. I could once again simply enjoy, for however brief a
time, feeling somewhat close to being my true self, when dressing became a
blessed eternal time of utter, peaceful contentment. My mother came to know
that there was a box in my closet of my collection of girly things; she honored
my privacy and never got into it.

I then tried to get the help I needed to make this craziness end. I went to the
county's local mental health facility. And, of course, they assigned me to a
male counselor. I didn't understand men. I despised them; they had done nothing
but show me contempt and meaness. My father had died when I was 13, and he was
a drunk. I couldn't relate to them. And now this male wanted me to tell him my
deepest secrets, the things that were the cause of the hurt they caused me for
all my life. And they wanted me to tell them in an outright bold statement? No
way. I didn't trust men.

So I kept going to the center making things up. They sent me to group therapy,
which was a waste of time and space. I wanted to come out and tell these people
what my problems really were, but I couldn't bring myself to it. Finally I got
to a female counselor. And I unloaded it all to her on the first visit. She
couldn't sink into the couch far enough. I was so very hurt. But she and I
continued to meet. She was winging it, and didn't know how to handle this.
After all in the 70's there were only Christine, Jan Morris, and Rene Richards
that were known. And this was at the time Rene Richards was in the news, so I
thought my timing was good, but I was wrong.

No sane human wants to be utterly alone, and I still had some shred of sanity
left. Of the lovers I had at that time, all were female, and I did my best to
fill the role expected of me ... but it was very difficult. And sex for me
never ventured beyond petting. My sex drive found release, at first, but what I
most deeply wanted was an eternal, committed relationship, something few other
18 year olds of my time seemed to want.

In coping with the sex I was driven to engage in, the only way I could deal
with the soul-rending horror of using those accursed organs I possessed was to
distance my self increasingly from the act. To this day, because of this agony,
sex is all but anathema to me, and I am essentially asexual, very passive.
Being sexual at all brings back some of the awfulness of those days, and
flashback shrieking horrors in my soul. But happily, I now possess almost no
sex drive at all. This is a magnificent benefit to my comfort, but frustrating
upon occasion for my spouse. I do not know if I will ever be able to feel good
about sex. It hurts so much less—and feels so wonderful—to be an angel.
It seems that being innocent and childlike is my safety and my
salvation.

I continued my visits to the counselor, and she gave me a challenge to come to
the next appointment in a dress. I hadn't ventured out of the house thusly
before, and the thought of that had terrified me. Not because I didn't want to,
but I was so afraid about having this terrible curse, and then to flaunt it was
unbearable. We talked about sex-change surgeries that I didn't know could be
done. I went to the next appointment only in women's underwear, bra, and
stockings under my male shirt and pants.

The counselor had found a psychiatrist who worked at a university medical
center in a half-hearted gender clinic. I went to a prescheduled meeting, and
she was a woman that fit the stereotype of a dyke if I ever knew one. She
called me into her office and told me that I wasn't ready yet for the surgery,
and I needed to give a huge effort to try not to give in to my feelings. I
needed to give trying to be a male a real strong effort.

So I did. For 20 years I did everything I could, from joining the Air Force to
getting married. I gave up 20 years of my life on the bad advice of a
half-hearted, inexperienced psychiatrist. Twenty years that encompassed a
16-year terrible-at-best marriage, drugs, alcohol, and attempted
suicide.

At the age of 40, when I finally had my catharsis, and awakened, when the cleft
halves of my split mind rejoined, when the pain finally brought me to the point
of facing myself or welcoming death by my own hand, I knew Purpose. Fully,
consciously aware of my lifelong torture, armed with a definition of my
condition, and clear on what I must do to save my own life, I began a Holy
Quest to redress the unendurable fault of my birth.

Transition was enormous pain, and required every ounce of will and strength I
possessed merely to continue one day to the next. All about me was hostility
and the loss of friends and family. My sadness was oceanic. Even so, I have
never felt more alive, for I was facing life and death square on, for a Holy
Purpose, and driven by that Purpose I felt invincible!

As my flesh, under the gentle but powerful magic of female hormones, began to
change, as my sex drive fell away and the driving demon that possessed me was
exorcised, I began to feel light as air. Sylphlike, I floated on wings of hope,
and knew peace in my body, my mind, and my soul. Oh, the difference! Where male
hormones made me feel poisoned and sick to die, driven by sweaty-dark
aggression, female hormones made me feel innocent and pure, filled with light
and gentle contentment.

I felt cherubic and new-born, and I knew in a matter of weeks that my choice
was correct. It felt so wonderful to shapeshift ! Every day held promise, for I
enjoyed a second childhood of soft growing wonder. I saw my hands soften and
become delicate again, a sight lost to puberty. I itched sweetly inside my
growing bosom, and the sea of life within my body altered its flow to fit the
contours of my soul. I was no longer in the back of the dark theater of my
perception; I was outside that metaphoric theater altogether, living life
fully, as I do to this day. I knew constant hope, and the exquisite pleasure of
being resculpted by the very Nature who once betrayed me. The Mother was
repairing Her mistake.

Only this boundless joy and ecstasy could have permitted me to survive the
misery I endured at the hands of the cruel humans around me. The stuff of
ridicule, I could not face the grocery store on many days and went hungry,
because the taunting and insults of the clerks were too much to bear. The
feeling of transition was Absolute Heaven—and Deepest Hell. It was miracle
and curse, release and damnation both. But I have never before or since, felt
more truly alive. It was real magic, the stuff of dreams made solid.

And it was at this time that I met my spouse, who stood beside me through it
all. She had been taunted by being called a lesbian, freak, and whoremonger,
but she was there, and we knew that each had found the other soul mate we were
put on this Earth to find.

Surgery was almost anticlimactic, at the same time as being utterly terrifying
and hideously painful. I knew I could die from it, and for the first time in my
life, I had something to live for. But I also knew I could not endure to live
with those horrid organs. I loathed them, how they looked, how they worked,
what they felt like. It was like having some decaying parasitic worm hanging
off of my body.

I finally felt ... right. Correct. Oddest of all, I felt exactly the way that I
imagined that I would feel before surgery. Science tells us that there is a map
in the circuitry of the brain of the layout of our bodies, and children born
without limbs suffer phantom-limb syndrome though they have never known the
missing limbs. My explanation is that my `body map' was female and the cause of
my desperate need for surgery. Things felt wrong because my wiring told me
clearly what I should be shaped like. Now that I am, the conflict is gone, and
my suffering for missing organs is absent. I possess the contours and organs
that fit my internal `map', and so I feel ... all right.

So the feeling of surgical correction is ... normality. Finally feeling free
from internal and external conflict. It just ... finally ... is OK. Now, after
surgery, I live my life pretty much without much thought to gender dilemma. I
am fixed, I am repaired. But I will never be utterly without this difference.
Unlike most women, I suspect, I cannot help but occasionally whisper a
heartfelt prayer of thanks for the gift of finally being me. I can never take
these things for granted, they are happy birthday presents forever, reminders
that I live as a miracle.

And because I have lived such an adventure, I am forever set apart. I cannot
simply be an ordinary woman, because I have not lived an ordinary woman's life.
And so many life experiences I cannot join in to discuss, like menstruation, or
dating, or the myriad trials of growing up as a girl. I have known all of the
discriminations and limitations of being a female—and then some, for I was
treated as a freak before my attainment of womanhood—but few of the joys. I
cannot relate to the childhood of a boy either, for I did not have one, so I
have so many things not to say.

This difference does haunt me, and in my years of hiding until I decided to
share it with you, I felt the most disturbing muteness, the fear of discovery,
that anyone should know my shameful past. This is why I have decided to come
out, because even if my body is at last corrected, I have been altered in my
soul and mind by the journey to achieve it.

So the feeling of being a post-op transsexual is for me the comfort of happy
correctness mixed with the bitterness of forever lost girlhood, and the joy of
remembering that I am a miracle, a shapeshifter incarnate, and that I have
lived an adventure. I am at once Normalized and Alienated, Wistful and Joyful
together.

This is what it feels like to be me.

Unsigned

I am a heterosexual, married male. I work, live, and dress as a man, yet I do
like also dressing up in female clothing when I can. At the early age of 4 or
5, I already felt like part of me was also "feminine." I used to wear my boy's
briefs backwards in hope they would resemble girl's panties. I loved girl's
clothes and would comment on their dresses, even then. My breasts had gotten a
little more padding than most guys in my class as a teen, and I was always
called "a girl" and "where's my bra?"

My wife knows, and lets me dress in what I like. I have yet to go out dressed
as a woman, but sometimes I really believe I have both sexes inside my body.
And sometimes the female side wants out and wishes it had more bodily traits to
be percieved as one.

That's my troublesome story. I don't mind feeling feminine, but I sometimes
wish I really was female in order to satisfy my need.